Teaching in the outback

When Rachael Muller arrived to start a job in a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory, she didn't think she'd last a week. Three years on, she's just returned to the New South Wales north coast.

As a young woman from Dunoon, the Northern Territory outback was like nowhere Rachael Muller had seen before, and the scorching dry heat was like nothing she'd ever experienced.

Rachael got a teaching job in the Imanpa community, 200km south-west of Alice Springs, shortly after finishing her degree at Southern Cross University.

Her first week was spent training at Uluru in 45 degree heat.

"I asked the airline hostess whether the plane was going back to Sydney," she says.

With just a dirt road leading into the community for kilometres, she recalls arriving to people waiting around to see who would emerge from the dust clouds they'd been watching slowly approach.

Locals are said to be able to distinguish who's who and what they're coming to the town for, by how fast they're travelling.

"We were going pretty slow that day so I imagine they assumed it was someone new," Rachael laughs.

With a population of less than 250 people and fewer than 15 houses, the difference in lifestyle was something that initially took the new graduate aback.

A truck came each Thursday to deliver food and other goods, and the mail was dropped off once a week a couple of kilometres up the dirt road.

"I had a brown snake living in my house when I first moved out there," she says.

"I also realised quite quickly that the people I was working with were very traditional - they still went out and hunted and gathered together which was really nice."

As time went on, many of the local Aboriginal people gave Rachael insight into the culture that is still very strong in the community today.

One day she was invited for a cup of tea after a young man's initiation ceremony, a very proud moment for young Imanpa men, and some of the women took her out bush to dig for honey ants.

"That was an amazing experience, even though it was really hot and it took a really long time, it was well and truly worth it to experience their culture and to share that with them."

Being a teacher of an Indigenous school in a remote community presents its own hurdles.

But not long after she got there, the other teacher left, leaving her to run the school alone.

One of the biggest challenges was encouraging the kids to come to school.

Having service providers regularly come in and out of the community meant it was hard to gain trust.

However Rachael says as her relationship with the community flourished, there was a massive improvement in attendance.

"I remember early on the kids asking 'how long are you staying for?' and I said to them that I'm here for at least a year... and the kids said 'you won't last'.

"When I said I was coming back at the start of my second year, they were really excited and I think it kind of felt like someone was actually hanging around and that relationship and the trust was there."

After witnessing cases of children being cheated, Rachael says one of her main goals was to teach community members how to count their own change and fill out forms.

She also organised many community projects including a post-box painting program and an excursion to Melbourne.

The young Dunoon woman has been nominated for the 2012 Northern Territory young achiever of the year.

Her key achievement was helping two female students finish year 11 and 12 subjects.

"It's the first time in the school's history that it has happened," she says.

But for Rachael the most humbling experience was the connection she made with the people, on the land she came to love.

"When I left there I spoke to a couple of the kids and said that I was coming home to live with my family and they said 'but you are family', so that was really nice."